I know that there was general amazement when John Wiley Price was acquitted in his recent bribery and corruption trial.
This article in the Dallas Observer expands past the “corrupt African American grifter” stereotype to explain the rather complex and sometimes contradictory personality and actions of John Wiley Price.
The article makes a very salient point. In order to make bribery and corruption endemic in government, there have to be a string of willing bribers as well as bribees. In this case, a lot of rich families and businesses in Dallas seemed to have been quite happy to “do business” with John Wiley Price. This is not an African American community phenomenon, dismissable with some variant of “it’s African tribal spoils-based politics”. It is far more pervasive, murky and wide-ranging.
